


Just Human Volume 2

by donteattheappleshook



Series: Just Human [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-01 16:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19181887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donteattheappleshook/pseuds/donteattheappleshook
Summary: A continuation of last years CSSNS story Just Human. Now that Killian is a ghost and Mary Margaret knows everything, what does life have in store for a group of supernatural misfits? With the threat of Gold gone, Emma learns that sometimes just being human is the most complicated challenge of all.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the wonderful thejollyroger-writer "the comma queen" for all her work and support as an excellent beta! Check the story out on Tumblr to see djlbg's beautiful artwork!

“This is stupid.”

Emma sighs. “It’s not stupid, you’re just not trying.”

“I am too trying!” Killian practically whines. “The cup’s just stupid. It’s defective,” he says, glaring at the mug of hot chocolate on the table in front of them.

Emma practically rolls her eyes at his behaviour. They’ve been at it for an hour. So far, Killian has managed to pick up the cup a grand total of zero times - unless you count that one time where he accidentally sent it flying across the room in a moment of ghost rage. But he hadn’t actually touched it that time, so Emma said it didn’t count.

Killian groans and throws himself on the ground, sprawled out like a child having a tantrum. She’s pretty sure she hears him mutter some choice words about hot chocolate and where it can shove itself but she lets it slide.

“You just need to concentrate. Remember when you taught me? With the onion rings? Remember what it’s supposed to feel like in your hand. Ground yourself.” She takes one of his hands where it rests on the carpet they’re sitting on - well, she’s sitting;  he’s lying there, like an idiot. She’s not sure if it will help but she knows that when she’d been trying to get the hang of the whole corporeal thing, human touch - or at least Killian’s touch - had done wonders to help her feel more real, more alive, and she hopes she has the same effect on him.

Killian looks down at their fingers, intertwines them. A look crosses his face that she can’t quite read. It’s somewhere between disbelief and awe and something else. She understands. She remembers that feeling - the touch of something warm and real and far less like a memory than anything else. Touching Killian always brought it. And now… well now, with both of them being ghosts or spirits or dead or whatever they are - now it’s tenfold.

He traces her fingers with his own and Emma can swear she feels it all the way down to her bones. It’s like a heat and a magnet tugging at her insides and warming them up in the most amazing way. She hasn’t been dead that long - barely over a year - but she knows it can’t just be her memory failing her - nothing has ever felt like this before. It’s almost… ethereal. That’s the only way she can think to describe it.

Emma clears her throat. “Focus on what feels real,” she tells him, trying to draw his attention back to the cup on the table. He doesn’t look away from his hand as it drops her own and begins to trace patterns on her knee and Emma’s breath catches in her throat. She sees him smile a little before he turns his eyes to her.

“You feel pretty real,” he says, fingers trailing down her calf to her ankle and back up again.

Emma tries to frown at him. “You’re supposed to be concentrating,” she tells him, but she knows she’s fighting a losing battle.

“I am concentrating!” he insists, brows shooting up in defense. “See, right here, you’re skin is soft, and warm,” he tells her, gliding his palm down her calf. “It’s like silk. But I know that if I keep going right up here,” he continues, his fingers crawling just past her knee on her inner thigh to where she has a little scar from a terrible attempt at the balance beam when she was seven. “Here, there’s a little spot that’s raised and -”

“Killian,” she warns, her breathing picking up embarrassingly.

“Hush, Swan, I’m concentrating. Look,” he tells her, shutting his eyes and tracing the scar with serious intent. “Hmm, yes, see, I feel it. It starts right here,” his fingers find the base of the scar and begin to trace up, “And continues all the way up here to where it curves off…” his hand doesn’t stop and Emma lets her head fall back against the couch behind her. Jesus - this man.

“The scar stopped a little ways back there, buddy,” she points out, offering him a raised eyebrow.

His eyes pop open as though shocked. “Did it?” he asks, his face the picture of innocence. “Ah, well,” he sighs, “practice makes perfect!”

Emma doesn’t have it in her to throw him a smart remark. Her heart is racing in her chest and her blood is singing in her veins and all she wants is for him to keep going. She bites her lip and he gives her a wicked smile.

“You know, I think I’ve gotten the hang of this touching thing,” he tells her. He brings his head down slowly, until his mouth hovers above her scar, the scratch of his chin and the heat of his breath doing unspeakable things to her ability to think clearly. “I think I’m ready to try tasting.”

He’s only just placed the faintest brush of a kiss on the same spot he’d been exploring earlier when a loud “ _For fucks sake!”_ causes them to jolt apart. Well, she jolts. Killian just shoots an annoyed glare at the voice.

“I don’t need to see that!” David groans, standing in the doorway with a hand covering his eyes. Mary Margaret enters after him and casts him a confused glance before she takes in the scene before them.

“Oh!” she exclaims, clearing her throat as Emma and Killian awkwardly part and resume a seating arrangement much more suited to polite company. “Maybe, um, maybe we should just come back later?” she suggests to David. She can’t make eye contact with Emma and both women’s cheeks are flaming bright red.

“No, no,” Emma insists earnestly, embarrassed and a little guilty as David dramatically mumbles something about ‘ _in my own damn home’_ under his breath. “No, it’s fine!” Emma insists casting a glance at Killian who doesn’t look nearly as chastised as he should. She thinks she hears him mumble something about ‘ _my home too’_ and ‘ _cockblock’_ and she elbows him in the ribs. “We were just… practicing.” Her face grows even hotter at the look on Mary Margaret’s face, her brows nearly disappearing behind her short bangs. “Ghost stuff!” she nearly shouts. “We were practicing picking up mugs,” she finishes lamely.

“Pretty sure there aren’t any mugs in there,” David mutters under his breath and this time Mary Margaret’s the one to elbow her boyfriend.

The four stare at each other in an awkward silence. Emma feels kind of bad. She knows that she and Killian’s new found… _passion_ has made living with them a little more difficult than it had been. They do their best to avoid blatant PDA when their friends are around but, well… they don’t need to sleep. And David’s made a comment once or twice that just because they don’t sleep doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to.

Emma had been worried that David’s head was going to explode when Killian gifted him earplugs (technically he’d made Emma gift them since he couldn’t actually hold them - she’d known it was a bad idea as she handed over the little box). Thankfully, Mary Margaret had been there to place a soothing hand on his shoulder and suggest they go to her place for the night. And a few nights after that. Emma can’t pretend she hasn’t enjoyed having the place to themselves but she’s glad her friends are back - the house doesn’t feel right without them.

That was a week ago, and Emma wishes she could say that they’ve gotten better, but here they are again. She can’t help it. She loves him. And it’s only been two weeks. Two weeks since everything went down. Two weeks since Gold happened and Killian died and then came back to her, since Mary Margaret found out David’s secret. She’s been handling it very well in Emma’s opinion. There were a lot of very long conversations and complicated answers to complicated questions, some of which they didn’t know the answer to, like what it meant now that David could change at will. Did that mean he didn’t have to change on the full moon? Would he always be in control? They wouldn’t know until the next full moon and Emma’s pretty sure that’s had a lot to do with David’s short temper these last couple of weeks. She’s tried to remind Killian of this, but he’s convinced that the last thing David would want is for them to walk on eggshells around him. ‘ _He wants things to be normal more than anything, Swan,_ ’ he’d told her. ‘ _What’s more normal than me taking the piss out of him?’_

“Why don’t David and I get breakfast started?” Mary Margaret suggests after several long moments of the boys giving each other dirty looks and she and Emma casting each other awkward glances.

“Breakfast?” Emma asks, confused.

“Yes, breakfast,” David repeats, still giving his best friend the stink eye. “Killian asked us to come over to celebrate - and cook for him since he’s absolutely useless - ghost or not.” Killian glares at David but she can see the hint of a smile behind it. Maybe he had a point about normalcy. “I guess he forgot,” David adds pointedly.

Emma is still confused though. “Celebrate?” She looks to her friends for an answer, hoping she didn’t forget someone’s birthday. David and Mary Margaret are looking at Killian with soft expressions and she follows their gazes.

“Aye, love,” he says, meeting her eyes and giving her a somewhat bashful smile. “It’s been one year. One year ago David and I moved in. It’s been one year since we met you - since _I_ met you.”

Emma’s breath catches in her throat. She’s touched. Touched that he remembered, that he thought it was important enough a date to celebrate. And with breakfast - that one meal of the day that was always theirs, those early days where he would get home in the wee morning hours and do his best to stay awake long enough to hear all the mundane details of her day.

That day changed her life (or death, whatever). It meant everything to her. And to know that it meant as much to him… she loves him so much. She can feel her eyes water and she casts a glance at David and Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret looks like she’s about to cry and David’s bad temper has left him completely. He offers her one of his kind smiles, the kind that always makes her feel loved and safe and she gives him a watery one in return. She loves them both so much.

She turns back to Killian who is looking at her with an openness and an intensity that nearly bowls her over. “You changed my life that day,” he tells her and Emma couldn’t tear her gaze from his even if she wanted to. “I’d been so lost - for centuries just stuck, wandering around with no real purpose, no reason for existing. And then I met you. The moment I met you I just knew. I don’t know how to explain it but I just knew that nothing would ever be the same again - that I would never want it to be. I realise now that I’ve loved you from that first moment I caught you spying on me in the kitchen.”

Emma isn’t even bothering to try hold back her tears anymore. “You told me I didn’t have to be alone anymore,” Emma says, her voice small and quiet even in the silent room.

“Aye, I did. And I meant it. You never have to be alone ever again. His own eyes are watering now. He looks at her for a long moment before casting a glance over her shoulder at their friends. David gives him some kind of look and Killian lets out a small laugh. “Bugger. I had a whole thing planned. There was breakfast involved and I was supposed to be able to hold things by now but screw it, I don’t want to wait another second.”

Emma watches, her heart racing in her chest as Killian shifts to work a ring off his pinky finger. She’s noticed it before. He’d started wearing it a few days before his death but she hadn’t gotten around to asking him about it, sure that he would tell her when he was ready.

He manages to remove the ring and Emma’s breath stops all together as he holds it out between them. Emma wants to shout ‘yes!’ at him but she knows he has more to say so she settles for smiling while she cries and lets him speak.

“I’m not asking you to spend the rest of your life with me. I think we’ve both learned that a lifetime isn’t all it’s cracked up to be - not if you’re not with the right person. But you are that person, Emma. It took me three hundred years to find you and only seconds to know that I never wanted to be apart from you. Will you spend forever with me? Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” she practically shouts the moment he’s finished speaking, throwing herself into his arms. Killian lets out a chuckle that sounds almost relieved as he wraps his arms around her and holds her tightly to him, burying his nose in the crook of her neck.

“I love you,” she tells him, pulling back to look into his eyes again and she knows that he knows - that he knows how much she loves him, how much he means to her despite her lack of ability to say it as beautifully as he does. She brings his lips to hers and kisses him with all the love and joy and excitement that she possesses.

She’s vaguely aware of David and Mary Margaret cheering behind them as they pull apart. Killian has tears running down his cheeks and Emma reaches to wipe them away as he does the same for her. They’re a mess, both of them, and it’s perfect. The whole thing is perfect. The proposal, David and Mary Margaret being there, it happening on the living room floor next to the couch that so much of their relationship has centred around, it’s all just perfect.

“I don’t know if this will work,” he tells her, holding out the ring and taking her left hand. Emma laughs a bit. They’ve certainly discovered that they can take their clothes _off_. When Killian had been a vampire she’d always had to do it herself, something in the stupid post-death rule book seeming to decide that only a ghost could take off ghost clothes, but now that they’re both dead… well they’ve had a lot of fun finding new ways to undress one another. But putting on something new - that isn’t something they’ve tried before.

Emma tries not to let herself be too hopeful, reminding herself that it’s the thought that counts as Killian slides the ring onto her finger. It’s a little big, Killian’s hands being much larger than her own, but he lets go of the ring and it stays where it is, thin and silver with a small, dark stone in the middle and it’s perfect.

Killian looks down at the ring, running his finger over it before beaming up at her and placing a kiss on it, squeezing her hand tightly. They sit smiling at each other so brightly and with so much joy that Emma thinks she might just burst into rays of sunshine until Mary Margaret’s voice interrupts them from the doorway.

“Can we come over now?” she asks and when Emma looks over at her she looks like she’s about to jump out of her skin with excitement.

Emma laughs and says yes and she and Killian stand as Mary Margaret practically charges her, wrapping her in a giant hug as she bounces up and down in excitement. Killian and David reach to wrap their arms around one another but burst out laughing as David’s arms go right through his friend.

“Raincheck,” Emma hears David tell him before Mary Margaret releases her to grab her hand and look at the ring, gushing over how beautiful it is and how happy she is for her.

“You’re definitely going to want those earplugs tonight,” Killian tells David and Emma can hear the groan but there’s not much weight behind it. “Really, Dave, if you keep getting offended by... _mature subject matter,_ I’m going to start feeling sorry for Mary Margaret.”

“You’re lucky I can’t punch you right now.”

Killian laughs. “Raincheck,” he tells him.


	2. Part 2

“You ready, love?" he asks, holding out his hand.

Emma pauses, taking a deep breath before steeling herself and nodding. She can do this. She’s done it before and she can do it again. She reaches for Killian’s hand and grasps it tightly, trying to convince herself that she won’t float away if she steps out that door. He offers her an encouraging smile and Emma reminds herself that it’s not the house she’s grounded to, not the house that keeps her here and real and human(ish) - it’s him. Him and David and Mary Margaret. She can do this. But she’s taking him with her just in case.

She hasn’t left the house since that fateful night when she ran to Killian’s aid but there were a lot of mitigating factors in that instance. He was dying, she thought she’d lost him forever, she had a bunch of pissed-off ghost juju running through her veins and she had literally turned into some kind of poltergeist. So while yes, she’d left the house before, it was not a pleasant experience and she worries that under different circumstances, it might not work.

She knows it’s ridiculous. Killian has left the house and he’s still less corporeal than she is (he managed to nudge the mug today but that’s about it). But Killian didn’t die in this house. His soul isn’t tied to it the way hers is. What if she floats away?

“We don’t have to do this,” Killian tells her, his expression supportive and not full of pity like she feared it could be. “We can wait.”

“No,” she says. It’s now or never. If she keeps putting it off she’ll never leave. Fear feeds on fear and she worries that she may be turning into the agoraphobe Mary Margaret once thought her to be, that maybe her fear is, in fact, more human than supernatural. “I can do this.”

“I know you can,” he says with a squeeze of her hand.

With another deep breath, Emma shuts her eyes and takes the step that brings her over the threshold of the house’s front door. She waits, eyes squeezed shut. She expected something to happen, to feel some kind of change, a rush or a jolt or pain or relief but instead… there’s nothing. It’s exactly the same.

She slowly opens her eyes one at a time. She looks down at her feet first, standing slightly apart on the wood of the front porch. She glances around at the yard in front of her. She’d almost forgotten what it looked like, almost forgotten the big willow tree she’d loved so much when she and Neal had first bought the place. She looks back at the door, the door that had looked so large and intimidating to her for over a year. Now it just looks like a slab of wood painted an ugly shade of pale grey. She’ll have to talk to David about changing that. The house needs something brighter, happier, something to match the inside. She thinks yellow might be nice. Finally, she turns to Killian who has been standing silently beside her while she takes everything in.

“So, Swan, where to?” he asks.

She looks down at their hands, her own grasped firmly in his. Nothing has changed. Everything is perfect. Better than perfect. “Anywhere,” she tells him. “Everywhere.”

He smiles. “Everywhere it is then.”

Everywhere ends up being a leisurely stroll through the city with Killian pointing out some of the changes that have been made in the last year, including a park being opened a few blocks away from them and a new community garden that Killian may or may not have taken part in tending to at night when he couldn’t sleep - and was corporeal.

Everywhere also ends up being the two of them sitting in a booth at Granny’s. Emma is far more excited than she should be to find herself in the somewhat run-down diner, but for the last year she’s been hearing stories of the grumpy owner and being brought home bags of the best grilled cheese and onion rings she’s ever tasted. This is the place where her friends hung out when she insisted they get out of the house and stop feeling sorry for her. This is where David and Mary Margaret met! And now she gets to be here.

“Killian!”

Emma turns to see an older woman with a notepad in her hand frowning down at the man seated across from her. She looks between them, confused and her apparent annoyance.

“Mrs. Lucas,” he greets her, the epitome of politeness. The woman almost cracks a smile - almost.

“Been a while,” she tells him sternly. “Was starting to think maybe you’d found another diner.” The older woman raises a brow at him and Killian smiles charmingly.

“I could never! No one could ever take your place,” he insists and Emma rolls her eyes. What a freaking flirt. The woman, who Emma has pieced together must be Granny herself, rolls her eyes as well but loses her aggressive posture. “I’ve simply been otherwise engaged,” Killian continues, gesturing to Emma. “Mrs. Lucas, I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure of meeting my fiance, Emma Swan.”

Emma nearly blushes at the introduction, still not used to being called someone’s fiance. The woman gives her a scrutinising once-over that has her squirming in her seat. Then her expression changes to something a little impish.

“Ah, now I see why you’ve been too busy to come to my diner,” she tells him and Emma almost expects her to wink at them. She turns bright red at the insinuation - not that it’s wrong. “So you’re the one that he keeps bringing onion rings home to then,” she says to Emma and Emma almost freezes, intimidated by the woman who is clearly a little protective of her fiance.

“Absolutely,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “They’re the best I’ve ever had.” She casts Killian a glance. “You could say they changed the way I tasted food.” she notices Killian fight to hold back a snort at her comment.

The compliment seems to appease the older woman and she nods before pulling a pencil out of her bun and holding up the notepad as though the exchange never happened. Killian shoots her a wink and she knows she’s received Granny’s seal of approval.

“Shall I get you a plate then?” she asks, pencil poised over the notepad.

Emma nods. “Yes please, and a grilled cheese too!” Granny nods and Emma knows she’s winning her over.

“And for you?” she asks, turning to Killian. Killian clears his throat, scratching the spot behind his ear like he always does when he’s nervous.

“Nothing for me, thank you,” he says and Emma wishes he wasn’t struggling so much with his new found afterlife. Watching him try day in and day out to pick up a mug has been difficult. She knows how much it frustrates and disappoints him. She considers for a moment before an idea strikes her.

“Granny, do you have any rum?” she asks.

The woman nods.

“Great! He’ll have rum, neat.” she tells the woman. “Make it a double.”

Granny scribbles on the notepad and walks away.

“What are you doing, Swan?” Killian asks suspiciously as they wait for their orders to be filled.

“I had an idea,” she tells him. “Just trust me.”

He looks at her questioningly for a moment longer before nodding. “Always.” he says.

It’s not long before their orders are placed in front of them. Killian stares at the tumbler of rum and Emma sees him swallow. She pushes her plate out of the way and leans forward, nudging the glass closer to him. He looks down at it, fingers on the table fidgeting.

“This is just cruel,” he tells her, casting a longing look at the rum.

Emma smirks. “You want it? All you have to do is pick it up.”

He frowns at her. “You know I can’t.”

“Yes you can. You just have to want to. Just hear me out,” she insists when he shoots her a doubtful look. “The first time I touched something after I died it was because I wanted to get a better look at you and David. I nudged a curtain without even realising it. The next thing I was able to do was pick up mugs because I wanted to be able to do something for you guys - to not feel like a burden - I wanted to make you guys some freaking hot chocolate.” He’s looking at her fondly and Emma knows she’s convincing him. “The next thing I was able to touch was you,” she says, reaching her hand out to caress his. “Because even back then I really _really_ wanted to.” Killian smiles at her and she takes his hand and pushes it towards the glass until his fingers are curled around it. She holds back her excitement when his hand doesn’t go right through it. “Remember what the tumbler feels like in your hand. Don’t you miss the taste, the spice of it? I always liked how it tasted on you. It would be nice to taste that again,” she offers coyly and Killian swallows again. He looks down at the glass in his hand. “Just focus on what you want,” she reminds him gently.

Killian nods and focuses on his fingers, tightening them tentatively around the drink. His eyes flash briefly to hers when he meets resistance and Emma tries to contain her excitement. She watches as he tries a few times to lift the glass. Once his hand comes up empty, another time the glass merely rattles a bit against the counter. Finally, on his third try, he lifts the glass to his lips and she watches as he breathes deep, clearly remembering the taste of his favorite drink.

“Bloody hell,” he says, looking at the glass in his hand and then back at Emma. A sound that is a combination of disbelief, relief, and celebration leaves him in one breath and Emma reaches out to grab his free hand.

“I knew you could do it,” she can’t help but point out.

“Aye, you did,” he concedes, setting the drink down, but then casts her a traitorous look. “But this is still a cruel trick to play on a man. I can hold it and I can smell it but,” he brings the glass back to his lips and tilts it back, “I can’t taste it,” he says somewhat forlornly.

Emma’s brows pull together in commiseration before she has her second brilliant idea of the day. She snatches the glass from his hand and brings it to her own lips, throwing back a mouthful of the spicy liquid before letting it fall back into the glass.

“You can taste it now,” she tells him, casting him a glance that’s far from innocent and biting back a smirk.

Killian stares at her, mouth hanging open in shock and arousal before he lunges across the table, his hand going to the back of her head and fisting in her hair as he slants his mouth over hers. His tongue wastes no time in capturing hers and Emma nearly laughs at his enthusiasm - nearly. While he may have caught her off guard, it only takes a moment before the heat of his kiss makes its way straight to her belly and a moan catches in her throat as she gives back as good as she gets.

Granny clears her throat and Emma pulls back slightly. Killian doesn’t release his grip on her hair, keeping her face close to his own and letting out a shaky breath.

“We’ll take the food to go,” Killian tells the woman. Granny makes a sound of annoyed agreement. She walks away and Killian finally opens his eyes to look at Emma, his pupils blown and his breath still ragged. “You know, I do have a room booked here tonight…” he trails off, and Emma laughs. She considers it only for a moment.

“Yeah, that you booked because you refused to stay in the house with me tonight,” she reminds him. “Didn’t you say it was bad luck to see the bride the night before the wedding?”

He growls low in his throat. “It’s not night yet.” Emma smiles, really enjoying how worked up he is right now. Part of her wants to give in - part of her _always_ wants to give in when it comes to this man. But another part, a part of her that’s annoyed at him for insisting they have to be apart tonight because of some stupid, old pirate superstitions, wants to make him pay. So she pulls back, feeling his grip on her hair loosen and finally release.

“You have a bachelor party to get to,” she tells him and he sighs. “And if you think Mary Margaret won’t come charging into that room to drag me out by the ear if I’m not back at the house in twenty minutes for the mandatory ladies-only night, you don’t know her very well.”

Killian sinks back in his seat with a huff, arms crossed and pouting like an insolent child. “I don’t see the point of a bachelor party if I can’t even drink,” he insists. “It’ll just be me and Dave and some guys from work sitting in some bar while I watch them get wasted.”

Emma smiles, not really looking forward to whatever uber-girly plans Mary Margaret surely has in store for tonight either. “We’re not doing it for us,” she tells him. “We’re doing it for them.” And it’s true. She and Killian might not be traditional, but their friends are, and they love their friends, so they can give them this silly old-fashioned tradition.

When they make it back to their place, however, they find a surprise waiting for them. David and Mary Margaret stand in the middle of the living room, boxes of pizza and a couple six packs of beer as well as really nice bottles of scotch and rum on the table behind them.

“What’s all this?” Killian asks, taking in the scene.

David smiles at them, walking over and handing Emma a beer. “It didn’t feel right,” he tells them, “the four of us not being together the night before your big day.”

Mary Margaret joins them, taking David’s arm. “We thought that this was a much truer celebration.”

Emma and Killian both look at their friends in surprise before Killian finally cracks a smile. “Get me a beer, would you, mate?” he asks David.

“Really?” David asks, surprise evident in his tone. Killian nods, and David hands him a bottle. He and Mary Margaret both cheer in excitement as Killian holds the bottle firmly in his hand and holds it up in a toast.

“Fuck tradition!” he says and the others raise their own drinks in a toast, echoing his sentiment. “Ow!” Killian cries and it takes Emma a moment to realise David punched him in the shoulder - hard.

“Been saving that up for weeks,” David says and Emma tries not to laugh at Killian’s indignant expression.

The night is perfect. The four of them eating and drinking and watching movies and listening to music and swapping embarrassing stories about the bride and groom-to-be. Emma is thrilled to learn that David has a plethora of anecdotes she’d never heard before about her fiance - ones that she’ll be able to laugh at him about for years to come. It hits her then that this is really happening. She and Killian are committing to years together - to forever together. A part of her feels like that should scare her, the remnants of who she was when she was alive, that woman would have been so afraid of letting someone love her because love had only ever brought her heartbreak and disappointment.

But it isn’t until now that Emma realises that woman died along with her body. And in her place, a new woman was born: born of Killian’s unshakable love, born of David’s fierce loyalty, and born of Mary Margaret’s constance and patience. A tear leaves her eye and she wipes it away quickly. Tomorrow, she commits herself to Killian forever. But she knows, they all know that the four of them, they committed to each other long before tonight.

The night ends with Killian and Emma escorting a very drunk David and a giggling, tipsy Mary Margaret up to David’s room. On their way up, David, who has most of his weight balanced on Killian’s shoulder turns to Mary Margaret and asks in genuine confusion: “Why don’t you live here?”

She laughs and pats his cheek affectionately. “Because you haven’t asked me to,” she explains patiently. David frowns.

“I haven’t? I’m an idiot.” He turns to Killian. “Why didn’t you tell me I was an idiot?”

Killian laughs. “I’ve tried, mate, so many times.”

David still looks absolutely flabbergasted. He turns back to Mary Margaret. “You should live here.”

Mary Margaret smiles amusedly at her very drunk boyfriend but Emma can see the real joy behind it. “Alright,” she says and Emma reaches out to squeeze her hand in a little celebration.

“About bloody time,” Killian says as he drops the log that is his best friend on the mattress. He acts annoyed but Emma sees through it as he pulls a blanket over the man and makes sure he’s lying comfortably. “Idiot.”

“You know he means it right?” Emma says to her friend. “It’s not just the alcohol.”

Mary Margaret smiles. “I know.”

“What a lightweight,” Killian says once his friend is safely tucked in for the night.

 

The wedding is absolutely perfect. It’s exactly what Emma would have wanted. They have it in the backyard, beneath lush green trees that Mary Margaret has strung with little twinkly lights. Emma can’t wear a dress but the ever-resourceful Mary Margaret manages to put her hair up in a series of twists and braids that somehow don't require pins or elastics and the look on Killian’s face when he sees her walk down the aisle on David’s arm tells her that she looks as beautiful as she feels.

They don’t have an officiant, they don’t have a registry or a marriage certificate, but they stand in front of each other, outside the house they turned into their home with the only people in the world who matter to them and they promise to love each other for all eternity. Emma has her engagement ring and Kilian moves his own rings around his fingers so that the only ring on his left hand is on his ring finger. They spend the rest of the night laughing and dancing and talking until finally, David suggests he and Mary Margaret head over to her place for the night to help her pack the last of her things. The look he shoots Killian is clear - _I’m giving you one night, then I’m going to start complaining about it again._ Killian and Emma take full advantage.

Later, when they’re laying in bed, wrapped in sheets and each other, Emma watches Killian as he toys with the ring on her finger.

“I meant to ask you,” she starts hesitantly. He looks at her, waiting. “I noticed you started wearing this ring a few days before… you know.” She doesn’t like talking about the events of that terrible night nearly a month ago and Killian squeezes her more tightly to him, supportive, encouraging. “I was just wondering why you started wearing it I guess,” she finishes lamely.

Killian kisses her temple and waits a moment before he starts speaking. She knows that when he hesitates it’s because he’s considering his words, that whatever he is about to say is important, that each of his words will be weighed and measured.

“I started wearing it because I knew I wanted to marry you,” he says and Emma looks up at him in surprise. That was not the answer she had been expecting. “My parents… my parents didn’t have a happy marriage. My father was a bastard but my mother, she was the kindest, most loving woman. I’ve never met someone so willing to open their heart to anyone who needed love, anyone who was lost. And she did it so freely, so unselfishly. She was beautiful, inside and out.”

Emma raises a hand to his face, traces the line of his cheekbone as she takes in his face, lost in the memory of the woman who taught him how to love.

“She stayed with me as long as she could but she fell ill and I lost her before my seventh birthday. She only owned two pieces of jewelry in her life. The ring my father gave her… and this one.” he toys with the ring on her finger again and Emma’s breathing pauses. “It was given to her by an old woman she helped once as a child. She was kind even then. The woman told her that it was magic, that it would keep her heart safe and that she shouldn’t part with it until she’d found someone she wanted to give her heart to.

“I don’t know if that was true but my mother believed it. She believed it her whole life. She never gave it to my father but she told me that story the night she gave it to me. She told me she wouldn’t be able to protect my heart anymore. She told me…” he clears his throat, his voice more emotional as he continues. “She told me, ‘ _You have so much love to give, always keep your heart open and keep it safe in here until you’re ready to give it away._ ’” He looks at her ring again and then meets her eyes. “I want you to know, Emma. You have my heart, completely. It belongs to you now.”

Emma doesn’t know what to say. She stares at this man in front of her. This man who has lived hundreds of years and had his heart broken so many times it wasn’t fair. His mother, his father, his brother, Milah… so many people taken from him so cruelly and yet he still kept his heart open, still offered love to anyone who needed it, still protected anyone who couldn’t protect themselves. She doesn’t have words for how much she loves him, how absolutely and completely her love consumes her, how lucky she feels that he finds her worthy of his love, that he chose her.

She sits up so that she can look at him properly, take in the lines of his face, the blue of his eyes and the lines of his neck, the slope of his shoulders and the scars that crisscross his chest. He chose her. He gave her his heart and accepted hers in return. She can’t fathom how he believed it to be a fair exchange but she’s certain in that moment that she’ll do everything in her power to keep it - to never let him doubt his decision.

She moves slowly, leaning in so she can watch his expression as she brings her lips to his. She cups his jaw gently, reverently, as she says with her body what she can’t with her words. Killian returns her kiss in kind, his hands tracing the shape of her with delicate touches as she lays back and pulls him down on top of her. Small gasps leave her as his fingers find her neck, her waist, her breasts and her center. His voice is in her ear, a rough whisper as he brings her to her peak with words of how beautiful she is, how much he loves her, how much he wants her.

Before the aftershocks of her first climax have left her she reaches down between them and finds him hard and hot in her hand, guiding him to where she’s wet and ready for him. The sound he makes when he’s finally fully sheathed inside of her has her gripping the back of his neck, her arms around his back in a caress that’s both soothing and desperate. She pleads for him to move and he finally does, both of them holding onto each other like they’re their only tether to the real world, her face buried in his hair, her breath in his ear and his head resting on her collarbone as he brings them both higher and higher.

He comes with her name on his lips and she follows him, triggered by his release, both physical and emotional. He lays breathing raggedly, his cheek resting on her breast and his arms hugging her in a gentle embrace. She lays with him still inside her, basking in the weight of him and the afterglow of their lovemaking. She could stay like this forever and never want for anything else. She feels him start to shift his weight off of her but she holds him tighter and he relaxes again.

This. This is what she wants, what she’s always wanted. She may have his heart, but he has her everything. Her heart, her body, her soul, and her love, for the rest of her eternity. They will keep each other safe. Always.


	3. Part 3

Another week passes and David’s time of the month comes and goes without a transformation. With the tension of the unknown finally gone from him, her friend is back to normal and the whole house seems lighter. Mary Margaret is fully moved in, Killian and Emma are enjoying marital bliss and even discussing the possibility of a honeymoon if they can figure out the logistics of “how do we do this without people realising we’re dead”. Killian really wants to show her Paris. And Amsterdam. And Santorini. And the Isle of Skye. 

But mostly, they’ve gone back to their old routine. Killian, who is now fully corporeal, has returned to work although at a different hospital after his month-long absence from the General. He found a job as an orderly at the children’s hospital and seems much happier for it - especially now that he can work days. David continues his work at the police station and Mary Margaret is getting ready for the beginning of a new school year. 

And Emma, well, Emma has gone back to being in the house by herself for most of the day. Reading books, going for walks, watching movies, cleaning, cooking, and slowly going out of her mind. 

They’re all sitting around the table having dinner when Emma makes an announcement. 

“I’ve decided to get a job.” Three heads turn to her in surprise - supportive surprise but surprise nonetheless. “I need to get out of the house. Now that I know I can… I need to do something with my days,” she finishes, hoping her friends understand. 

Killian reaches across the table and takes her hand. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, love.” 

“Absolutely!” David adds.

“I think it’s great,” Mary Margaret starts but then she pauses, hesitant to add whatever ‘but’ is coming. 

“What is it?” Emma asks.

“Well, you’re legally dead aren’t you? How are you going to get a job with no identity?”

Emma’s heart sinks. She hadn’t considered that. 

“Ladies, please,” Killian says with a slightly arrogant smile. “Do you think I’ve survived three hundred years without learning how to fake an identity or two in my day?” Emma’s heart rises as he shoots her an encouraging wink then turns to David. “Of course, it never hurts to have the cooperation of law enforcement.” 

David bristles a little, torn between his love for his friend and his commitment to his career but then he looks at Emma, her expression hopeful and vulnerable, and his face softens. 

“I might know a guy,” he says, shrugging, and Emma’s heart soars.

“Amazing!” Mary Margaret cheers. “What do you think you might do?” she asks and it gives Emma pause. 

“I was hoping I could go back to being a bail bondsperson” she says honestly. “I’ve missed it.” She did miss it. She missed the satisfaction of a job where she felt like she was doing good - where she felt like she was helping people out in some small way. There was a special place in hell for people who skipped out on their bail, leaving their loved one’s who’d put forth the money destitute and abandoned. It made Emma feel good to find them, to make them pay. And she was good at it. It was one of the few things in her life Emma ever felt she had a true talent for - the other was crime and while she wasn’t ashamed (she’d done what she needed to to survive), it had felt good to be on the right side of the law for those few months she’d been legit before her death. 

Killian smiles at her and she’s brought back to a conversation that feels like ages ago ‘ _ You must have been very good at your job’. _ Yeah, Emma thinks. Yeah, she really was.

A week later Emma holds her new passport and driver’s license. Emma Jones, née Nolan, David’s half-sister and Killian’s wife. It’s perfect. 

Killian comes up behind her as she stands in the kitchen looking over her papers. He wraps his arms around her and rests his head on her shoulder. 

“Hmm,” he hums. “Emma Jones, it has a nice ring to it don’t you think?” he teases. She can’t bring herself to dig her elbow into his ribs because as much as she knows he’s trying to get a rise out of her… she really  _ really _ likes it. More than she ever thought she would. 

“You know,” she says. “It kind of does.” 

Killian turns her in his arms backing her up against the counter until she’s wedged between it and his body. 

“I like it,” he says. “Mrs. Jones.” He places a kiss to one side of her neck. “Mrs. Jones,” he says again moving to the other side of her neck. Emma laughs.

“You’re not going to go all caveman on me are you?” she teases and Killian brings his head up to look at her, matching her smile.

“No love, you’ll always be Swan to me,” he promises, kissing the tip of her nose before he kisses her firmly on the lips. 

“Good.” 

 

***

Two weeks later, Emma is out chasing a skip when she hears it. The sound of screeching tires then a loud crash and the sound of metal being bent in an unnatural way. She stops in her tracks and runs towards the sound, heart racing in fear of what she might find. She’s only just rounded the corner when she sees it and her stomach drops. There’s a car, wrapped around a light post. The front is completely smashed in, actually curving around the solid cement block. Emma watches in horror as the post sways before falling onto the car, crushing the roof. 

She looks around in a panic. She left her phone in her car and there’s nobody around. She needs to call an ambulance. But the driver - what if they’re still alive? She has to help them, she has to - 

“Whats going on!?” the voice is young and it’s panicked and terrified. She whirls around and sees a boy standing behind her, only a few feet from the car. He can’t be more than sixteen, skinny with blonde hair and a scar running down one cheek. He runs up to the car and it suddenly hits Emma when she sees the person in the driver’s seat. It’s him. It’s the boy. Which means -  _ fuck. _

“What the hell is happening!?” He demands, turning to her for answers now. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how to handle this. She tries to center herself, to remember the panic and fear of the first few hours after her death. She needs to help him. What did she need that day? She thinks of Killian. What would he do? He would help. 

She turns to him, steps cautiously forward and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you’re gonna be okay,” she tells him, her voice shaky. She needs to pull herself together. She needs to be the strong one here. He needs her to be. He’s so  _ young _ . She quickly casts a glance inside the car, relieved to find there are no other passengers. The boy turns his frightened eyes on her.

“Am I dead?” he says and she knows he’s desperately hoping she’ll tell him he isn’t. But she can’t lie to him. 

She decides to be direct. “Yes. I’m sorry. But you’re gonna be okay. I’m dead too,” she adds, hoping it’ll make this feel more real - not that anything could make this feel real. She expects the boy to hound her with questions but instead he only says:

“My mom.”

Emma turns her eyes back to the car, worried she missed someone. But the boy has collapsed on the ground now, his head in his hands. 

“My mom. This will kill her. I was so awful. No, no, no.” He keeps mumbling to himself. Emma gently kneels down beside him. 

“Hey, kid, what’s your name?” she asks. He looks up at her, fresh tears in his eyes. 

“Felix.” Emma breathes a sigh of relief. Okay, she can do this. 

“Okay, Felix. I know this is scary. But I promise you’re going to be okay. I’m going to help you okay? I’m here to help you.”

“My mom,” he says again and Emma puts a reassuring hand on his back.

“Your mom will be okay. She -”

“No!” He says suddenly, shocking her. “No, I was so awful. I yelled at her. I said such horrible awful things to her! And now - now she’s going to think I felt that way forever.” 

Emma looks around. Where is it? Where is the door. This boy is a child. It’s not fair that there’s no door waiting for him. He shouldn’t have unfinished business. He’s too young. It’s not fair.

“Hey, Felix. Your mom knows you love her. Mom’s always know. Listen… kids and parents fight. I’m sure she knows you love her. She knows you didn’t mean what you said.” Emma doesn’t know. She has no idea what moms and their kids are like. She never had one. She’s making it up but she hopes it will help him.

“No, I told her I hated her. I said she was the worst mom ever. And now that'll always be the last thing I said to her!” He doubles over and starts weeping. “I have to tell her. I have to tell her I’m sorry.” He looks at her now, eyes almost crazed. “You have to help me. You promised you’d help me!” 

Emma looks at him, lost. She doesn’t know how to help him. He can’t see his mom - well, she won’t see him. Maybe she could pass on a message for him? Maybe he could send her one somehow - then it hits her.

“Hey. you have a phone?” she asks and he looks at her in confusion and then seems to catch on. 

“Yeah! Yeah it was in my pocket!” He says standing suddenly. He reaches into his own pocket but comes up empty. Emma shuts her eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath. She knows what she has to do - she’s not going to like it but she’s going to do it. She makes her way over to the car, reaching in through the smashed passenger window, doing her best to ignore the body in the seat as she reaches into the pocket of the dead boy's jeans and retrieves a phone. She returns to him and asks what his passcode is. 

“Tell me what you want to say to her and I’ll type it out for you,” she tells him. 

He nods, almost frantic in his relief. “Just - just tell her that I’m sorry. Tell her I’m sorry we fought and I didn’t mean what I said. Tell her I love her and that she’s the best mom ever.” 

Emma does as he asks, typing the message doing her best to sound like a teenage boy and hitting send. They both wait, neither saying a word or even breathing until the phone  _ pings _ and a message comes through. 

_ I know, I’m sorry too. I love you always x.  _

Emma shows him the message and the boy collapses again, this time in relief. Emma uses his phone to call 911. She’ll stick around, tell them she took his phone to call because she didn’t have hers. She sits with him for a minute, letting him cry on her shoulder, sure he can’t possibly be processing everything that just happened to him. That’s probably best. He shouldn’t have to suffer more. Suddenly, Emma looks up and there it is. A door. Right there in the middle of the street. A door to nowhere. 

“Hey, kid,” she nudges Felix. “That’s for you.” She motions to the door.

“For me?” He stares at it. “Where does it go?” he asks her, eyes vulnerable. 

She goes for honesty. “I don’t know. That’s something you have to find out for yourself, I guess,” she tells him. 

“Will it hurt?” he asks. Emma shakes her head.

“I don’t think so. What do you say? Beats sticking around here?”

Felix looks at the door for a moment, the sound of sirens starting to make themselves heard in the distance. Finally, he stands and steps slowly towards the door. He looks back at her one last time, a little unsure and she gives him a thumbs up. He turns back and opens the door and walks through. And just as suddenly as the door appeared, it’s gone. 

Emma sticks around for a while, answering questions from the police, watching as the body is taken away in the ambulance before finally making her way home. She tells Killian what happened and he gathers her in his arms, holding her tightly as he kisses the top of her head. 

“You did good, Swan. You helped him.” 

“I know,” she says. 

“But?” he asks. He always knows what she’s thinking. Always sees through her.

“It’s nothing. I just… do you ever wonder if we made the right choice? Not going through the door? I know you haven’t gotten one yet, but I’d have dragged you through mine if I decided to go. Don’t get me wrong,” she insists, “I’m so, so happy here with you and with David and Mary Margaret. But what happens when they’re gone? When everyone is gone? Do we only get one door? I know it’s silly…”

“It’s not silly,” he tells her, pulling her in closer. “I’ve had the same conversation with myself many times since I was turned all those years ago. I wish I had an answer for you. I’ve never met a ghost who turned down their door.” 

Emma thinks for a while, considering this. “What do you think is on the other side?” she asks finally. 

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “All I know is that I don’t want any part of it if you’re not there beside me.”

Emma wraps her arms around his waist and places a kiss in the middle of his chest, right over his heart.

Another month passes and the four of them are sitting at the table having breakfast on one of those wonderful lazy Sunday mornings where everyone got to sleep in and then stumble down for coffee, nobody in any rush to get anywhere. 

Suddenly, Killian looks up from the paper and asks the group: “What day is it?”

“Sunday,” Mary Margaret answers, giving him a confused look.

He shakes his head. “No, the number.”

“The 28th,” David answers equally confused. Killian stares at him.

“David, last night was the full moon.” 

David’s eyes widen.

“Holy shit,” Emma says. “Dude, you skipped your time of the month and didn’t even realise!”

David looks at them all, shocked. This is huge. They knew he didn’t necessarily change on the full moon anymore, but to know that it didn’t even need to be a part of his life anymore. That he didn’t have to worry, to stress, to fear. It’s huge.

Mary Margaret clears her throat. They all turn to her.

“He’s not the only one…”

Emma’s eyes go wide. “Are you?” She asks and Mary Margaret nods, taking David’s hand. Both of them wearing smiles so bright it’s almost blinding. She nods and Emma jumps up from her seat rushing over and hugging her friends. Killian looks at the three of them, confused. 

“She’s pregnant, you idiot,” David explains and Killian’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.

“Bloody hell,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “We’re gonna have a baby?”

David bursts out laughing at his friend’s rocked expression and choice of words.  

“Yeah, man,” he says, coming over to 

clap Killian on the back. “We’re having a baby.”

Emma and Mary Margaret look over at their boys bemusedly. Mary Margaret giggles. “You know, he’s actually handling it better than David did,” she jokes and Emma smiles at her husband who seems to have finally snapped out of it and is now wrapping David in a giant bear hug, patting him on the back and congratulating him. 

She’s so happy, really, she is. As she puts her hand on her friend’s still flat stomach and asks her all the questions you’re supposed to ask, she’s all smiles and excitement and happy. But there’s something, a little thought or feeling in the back of her mind that she can’t shake. A little dark cloud that she doesn’t understand but that continues to follow her around for the rest of the day. And as the day goes on the cloud grows, becomes darker and heavier until it consumes her and Killian finds her hiding in their bedroom, curled up beside the bed, trying and failing to cry the awful feeling out. 

“Hey,” Killian says, voice worried and soothing all at once as he rushes over to her side. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He sits next to her and gathers her into his lap, rocking her gently as he strokes her hair and hushes her cries. “Love, please, tell me what happened,” he begs and Emma’s cries get louder.

“I don’t know,” she sobs, her whole body shaking. “I guess… I - I didn’t even know it was something I wanted. I don’t even know if I want it… but now I can’t ever have it,” she tries to explain, her hand curling into the fabric of his shirt. And that’s it. That’s the feeling that’s been following her around, the one that’s been gnawing at her since Mary Margaret told them all she was having a baby. A baby. Something Emma never thought about wanting. Something she can never have. She’s dead. She’s dead and so are her chances of having a child, of having children. She’ll never have babies, never have  _ Killian’s  _ babies. And it hurts. 

“Oh, love,” Killian says and she can hear the sadness in his voice, wonders if he’s only sad for her or if there’s a part of him that hurts as much as she does. They stay there, curled up on the bedroom floor until the first rays of morning sun make their way through the window. 


	4. Part 4

PART FOUR

 

Emma’s better after that, after the first night when she let herself cry through the whole night in Killian’s arms. It still hurts sometimes, but it’s less of a sharp pain ripping her apart and more like the dull ache of an old injury she can often forget or ignore. She tells Mary Margaret and it surprises her how much it helps. Her friend is still one of the kindest people she’s ever met, she doesn’t see Emma as the selfish bad friend she considers herself to be when she confesses her jealousy, and reassures Emma that this baby will need its aunt and that she will need her best friend if she’s going to do this. 

“Can I tell  _ you _ something?” Mary Margaret asks.

“Of course,” Emma says. 

Mary Margaret wrings her hands, fidgeting in her seat, when she speaks she almost sounds guilty. “I’m scared,” she confesses finally. “Not of having the baby - well, a little of that, but no more than any other mom I guess. But… Emma, what if the baby is a werewolf? What if it changes while it’s inside me? What if it doesn’t survive the transformation?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Emma says, reaching out to take her friend’s hand.

“What if it does survive and has to go through the change every month? I’ve seen David go through it once. All that pain - Emma, I don’t think I could bear it. I can’t let my baby suffer.” She’s fighting tears and Emma comes around the table to hug her friend. 

She  _ is _ selfish. Here she’s been worrying about herself when Mary Margaret has been dealing with this and she hadn’t even noticed.

“Have you talked to David about this?”

Mary Margaret shakes her head. “He’d blame himself.”

“You need to tell him,” Emma insists. “I know he’d understand. He’s probably having the same fears as you.”

“I know, I know. It just - it feels wrong to hope that my baby won’t be born like it’s father.”

“Hey,” Emma says, giving her a friendly shake. “There’s nothing wrong with not wanting your child to suffer. You’re a mom. Protecting that little person - or supernatural being - inside of you is your job.” Mary Margaret smiles a little and nods through her tears. “Just talk to him.” 

 

***

Leo, Mary Margaret and David’s first child is born human. The pregnancy goes on with no mishaps or hiccups, but that doesn’t mean that Mary Margaret doesn’t panic every time she feels a slightly stronger kick or whenever the ultrasound technician takes slightly longer than normal to find a heartbeat or an image. David is with her throughout, holding her hand and holding his breath as well until the technician exclaims ‘Ah! There he is!’ and that’s how they find out they’re having a son. 

When Killian and Emma first come to visit their friends in the hospital, Emma doesn’t think Killian’s ever been as happy  to be fully corporeal as he is when David hands him his nephew, and she watches her husband turn into a pile of goo in the presence of the little pink, wrinkled human in his arms. A small spazm goes through her stomach at the sight and she’s not sure which part of it is stronger, the joy or the pain. She loves seeing him with Leo, he’s a natural with kids (who’d have thought?), but seeing him bounce the little bundle and make cooing noises reminds her once again that this is something she will never have.  _ Something  _ we _ will never have,  _ she thinks when Killian casts her a look that echoes exactly how she feels. 

“Killian, what are you doing to my kid?” David asks a few minutes later, and the three turn to Killian, who is thoroughly inspecting each of Leo’s fingers, toes, and pulling up his tiny lips to reveal a gummy smile. 

“Just checking him for claws,” Killian says innocently. “Or fangs,” he smirks at his friend and David stands, rolling his eyes.

“Give me back my son, you freak,” he says, taking the baby from Killian, who is chuckling softly. David hands Leo to Mary Margaret, who looks at him adoringly.

“He’s really perfect, isn’t he?” she asks. 

Emma smiles. “Yeah, he really is,” she says as the four of them crowd around the newborn. 

Perfect lasts for about 24 hours before they get him home and Leo decides to show them all just what his lungs are capable of. He screams. Continuously. All night long. During the day he’s happy as a clam, all gurgles and sleepy eyes and still a little wrinkly. But at night… at night he becomes some kind of possessed, howling banshee who seems dead set on the idea that none of them should sleep if he can’t. This goes on for days. He’s not hungry, he’s not in any pain, there’s nothing medically wrong with him (at least that’s what the three doctors David and Mary Margaret have brought him to in the last two weeks say), and he isn’t comforted by anything they do. They’ve tried rocking, singing, swaddling; nothing works.

Mary Margaret is a mess. So is David. For the most part, Killian and Emma have insisted that they should stay up with Leo since they don’t need sleep anyway but that howling is not something their friends can sleep through. Mary Margaret is at a loss, convinced that this means Leo is some kind of supernatural being and she feels hopeless for not having any solutions. 

_ “ _ Maybe he’s nocturnal,” she suggests in a moment of desperation. Emma shakes her head.

“He’s awake all day  _ and _ all night,” she reminds her friend. 

Mary Margaret nods. “Maybe it’s the moon. Do you think it has something to do with the moon?” she asks. Emma squeezes her hand, looking over at the baby who is happily nestled in his car seat on the coffee table, staring at the pattern on his mother’s dress with fixed attention. 

“Mary Margaret, I don’t think this has anything to do with the moon or werewolves or anything like that. I think this is just regular, baby stuff.” She’s trying to reassure her friend but the reality of it is… she has no idea. None of them do. Not one of them has ever had to take care of a baby before. They don’t know anyone whose taken care of a baby before. Mary Margaret’s parents have passed away, David left his own for their safety, Killian is nearly 300 years old, and Emma never had any parents to speak of. They’re scrambling. 

“I just…” Mary Margaret pauses, squeezing Emma’s hand harder and looking at her baby. “I’m just so scared that this means he’s going to change.” Her lip trembles and Emma gathers her in her arms before she can start crying. 

She’s shushing her friend, rubbing her back soothingly, when Killian comes in the front door. He’s home early, Emma thinks, looking at the time on the TV. Killian peers in almost cautiously before he spots them. He takes in the scene and hesitates. 

“Everything okay?” Emma asks, confused by his tiptoeing. He seems very unsure but she doesn’t know what he could have to be unsure about. 

“Aye,” he answers, nodding, he looks behind him out the door. “I… I brought someone. But if this is a bad time…” he hesitates. Mary Margaret shakes her head, wiping her tears off her face. 

“No, no I’m just being silly,” she says, shaking her head again, as though she can shake the bad thoughts right out. 

Killian looks at them for a moment longer before seeming to make a decision. He looks back outside. 

“You can come in, lad,” he says to someone they can’t see and suddenly, a small, dark head appears by Killian’s elbow. 

The boy hesitates, looking both terrified and lost as he hovers in the doorway, wringing his hands in front of him. Mary Margaret is up in a second and kneeling in front of the stranger - he can’t be more than ten. 

“Hi there,” she says in her lovely soothing voice. “I’m Mary Margaret,” she tells him. “What’s your name?” she asks. The boy stays silent, staring at her like he doesn’t know what to make of her. “That’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to tell me. I bet you were told not to talk to strangers weren’t you? That’s good advice. Do you want to come inside?” she asks, and the boy nods. 

Mary Margaret smiles and reaches a hand out for him. Her hand passes through him like smoke. Her eyes go wide and snap to Emma’s. Emma’s heart stops in her chest. Oh shit. Not again, Emma thinks. Her heart breaks. He’s so young. He looks so scared. Mary Margaret is quicker than she is to compose herself, leading the boy into the room and turning on a kids TV station. 

“I found him wandering the hospital,” he tells her when the boy is out of earshot. “I’d seen him a few times in the last couple of days but I just assumed he was visiting.” They cast a glance at him, sitting in his jacket and scarf watching what Emma is pretty sure is Power Rangers. “Then today I saw someone walk through him,” Killian tells her, and Emma feels tears well up in her eyes, remembering her first days as a ghost, how terrifying and lonely it was to wander unseen and unheard. 

“I haven’t been able to get a word out of him,” he says, running his hand through his hair and scrubbing it over his face. “I know there’s a lot going on but I didn’t know where else to bring him,” he admits and Emma wraps her arm around his waist. 

“No, you were right to bring him here,” she tells him, squeezing. “You did good,” she says, echoing his words from months ago. Killian looks at her, hopeful. “We’re gonna help him,” she promises. 

The boy doesn’t say anything. For three days he stays in the house, wandering, watching TV, staring out the window. He’s lurking, Emma can’t think of a kinder word for what he’s doing. He hovers around the house, always in earshot but he always scuttles off when one of them tries to acknowledge him or speak to him. He’s like a little bird, fluttering around and easily spooked. 

One night, when Leo’s wailing is particularly bad, Emma finds him staring at the bookcase. “Do you like books?” she asks him and the boy jumps, whirling around, immediately defensive. “Hey, it’s okay,” she soothes, taking a small step forward with her hands up at her sides. “I like books too. I didn’t used to, but Killian, the guy who found you, he gave me a couple of really good ones to read.” She’s not sure what she’s doing or trying to accomplish but the boy is looking at her with interest and she feels a small spark of hope that maybe she’s reaching him a little bit. 

“This is one of my favorites,” she says, reaching for a small hardcover with no jacket and taking it down from the shelf. “It’s about a little boy that never grows up. It has magic and fairies and even pirates,” she tells him and his eyes light up slightly at the mention of pirates. Emma smiles at him encouragingly. “Do you want me to read it to you?” she offers, heart racing in the hopes that he’ll say yes. 

He looks at her for a long minute, eyes flitting back and forth between her face and the book before finally, he nods, and Emma tries to stop the huge smile from spreading across her face. 

“Okay,” she says and leads him to the couch. The two settle on it, the boy still keeping nearly a foot between them and Emma opens the book and starts reading. “All children, except one, grow up..”

She reads him the entire book, start to finish and as the sun comes up and Leo’s screams seem to have started quieting, she turns the last page. “The End,” she says and looks down at the boy who she can’t help but notice has closed the distance between them slightly throughout the story. He gives her a small smile and she returns it. 

“Do you want to read another one?” she offers and he shakes his head, quickly reaching for the book and opening it back up to the first page. Emma freezes. Holy shit. He touched the book. He picked it up and flipped the pages back and now he’s ever so subtly nudging it closer to her. She doesn’t want to show her excitement. He doesn’t seem to have noticed his new corporeality and she doesn’t want to jinx it.  _ Focus on what you want _ . She remembers telling Killian. Okay. Books. This kid wants books. 

She’s just started reading again when Killian comes down and finds them  _ almost _ snuggled up on the couch. He gives her a slightly surprised smile before the boy notices him and jumps up from his spot, scurrying to the other side of the room. Killian looks between them, confused and a bit hurt, but when David and Mary Margaret follow suit, the boy ducks out of the room entirely.

“What was that?” Killian asks her. Emma shakes her head, she’s not even sure. 

“We need to go to the bookstore,” she tells him. He frowns. 

 

Two nights later, the boy has gone back to avoiding all of them and Emma is beginning to worry that that night was a blip. As she lays in bed with Killian, the two of them listening to the wails of baby Leo, they try to find a way to get through to the boy.

“I think… I think he’s afraid of me,” Killian says softly and Emma wants to wrap him up in her arms and banish those self-deprecating thoughts. 

“He’s afraid of everyone,” Emma tells him, running a hand along the hair at his temple. “Wouldn’t you be? I mean we don’t even know what happened to him - he might not know. And now he’s in a home full of strangers and walking through walls half the time.”

Killian sighs. “You’re right. I just… I want to help him. I brought him here and now I feel like I’ve just let him down.”

“You haven’t let him down. He needs time. And you brought him here. That was the best thing you could have done for him,” she insists.

He sighs again. “I -” he pauses. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” He sits up alert and she follows suit. 

“Nothing. It’s quiet,” he says. 

He’s right. It’s dead quiet. Leo’s wailing has stopped. Emma looks at him with her heart in her throat before they dash to the baby’s room, adrenaline and panic racing through their veins. She’s pretty sure Killian is about to burst into the room, knocking the door off its hinges when she stops him, a hand on his arm.

“Wait. Listen,” she says and he pauses, both of them leaning closer to the door. It’s faint, but the sound carries through. A voice, small and quiet and young. She can’t make out what it’s saying but her heart starts to race in her chest for a completely different reason. She looks at Killian who looks as shocked as she is before he gently nudges the door open. 

There, sitting on the floor next to the crib is the boy, book open in his lap as he reads out loud to the baby - the baby who isn’t crying, the baby who is listening raptly, eyes slowly drifting shut. Emma takes Killian’s hand, unsure of what else to do, should they go in? Should they try and engage him? Or should they leave the two be and stay out of it? 

He’s  _ talking _ . Okay, he’s technically reading but this is the first time Emma’s heard his voice since he got here and relief floods through her. She can see the same relief reflected in Killian’s face and he lets out a soft chuckle.

The reading stops suddenly and the two turn to find the boy, watching them with wide eyes. He looks like he’s about to get in trouble and it breaks Emma’s heart.  _ What happened to you _ ? She wonders not for the first time. She shakes it off, loosening her posture and trying to relax everything about her, make herself as unthreatening as possible. She looks to Killian who already has the pose perfected, he’s had years of practice trying not to be the monster people perceived him to be. 

“Hey, kid,” she says softly, not wanting to wake the now sleeping Leo. “Whatcha reading?” she asks casually. The boy hesitates for a moment before holding up the book for her inspection.  _ Treasure Island _ . Emma smiles. “That’s a good one. Have you read it before?” she asks. He shakes his head. She looks at Killian and he smiles encouragingly. “You’re gonna love it. It’s got pirates!” His eyes light up and Emma almost laughs. “You like pirates don’t you?” she asks and the boy nods vigorously. She does laugh this time. “Yeah, I like pirates too.” She gives Killian a small smirk and he returns it. “You know… Killian was a pirate,” she says and the boy freezes, wide eyes flashing to Killian in shock and awe. 

He stares. “Really?” he asks, voice full of wonder, and Emma’s heart practically leaps out of her chest.  

***

“You know,” Emma says later, after Killian has regaled the boy with a few of his more PG pirate tales and gone off to see if he can find any of his old pirate things to show the kid, leaving the two of them alone. “You're really good with Leo,” she tells him. “None of us had any idea what to do about his crying. But you figured it out. You must be pretty smart.”

The boy shrugs, looking at the baby for a long time and Emma has just resigned herself to accepting that she’s not going to get anything more out of him when he speaks.

“A lot of the places I stayed had babies,” he says quietly and Emma’s heart starts racing in her chest. 

“Oh, yeah?” she asks, prodding gently. “What kind of places?”

“Different homes,” he says like it’s nothing. “Sometimes there were lots of us all in one place. The babies used to cry a lot. They liked it when I read them stories.” 

Emma feels all the blood leave her chest and settle in her stomach. Homes. This boy was a foster kid. He was like her. She remembered what that was like, being in houses full of kids, all of them dirty and neglected. The crying babies were the worst. They never stopped and nobody ever came to check on them. She looks at the boy, really looks at him and that’s when she sees it, that look in his eye, the one she’s seen so many times looking back at her in the mirror, the one she’s seen once or twice in Killian’s eyes as well. That look you get when you’ve been abandoned. The look of an orphan. She clears her throat in an attempt to get the emotion out. 

“You must be a really good story-teller then,” she tells him and he smiles proudly. “You know,” she starts, “I grew up in a lot of different homes too.”

He looks at her, a little vulnerable. “You did?”

“Yeah. Some of them were really nice and I had really cool people taking care of me,” she tells him. Then, more hesitantly, “Some of them weren’t so nice though,” she adds and the boy looks at her, recognition and understanding in his eyes. 

“Yeah,” is all he says looking back down at the book.

“Hey,” she says softly, reaching out for his hand and smiling a little when he doesn’t pull away. “This is one of the good ones. The people here, they took really good care of me.” He looks at her attentively. “We’re gonna take really good care of you too, okay?” she promises. He doesn’t say anything but he nods and some of the fear finally leaves his shoulders. “Can you tell me your name?” she asks tentatively. 

He watches her for a moment, deciding. “I’m Henry.”

She smiles. “It’s  _ so _ nice to meet you, Henry.”

Emma glances up, her hand still wrapped around his smaller one and spots Killian standing in the doorway, smiling at her. His face is soft, a fondness and love shining through. And pride, he looks proud of her. ‘ _ I love you,’ _ he mouths at her and she smiles. ‘ _ I love you too, _ ’ she mouths back. 

He makes his way carefully into the room and Henry glaces up at him with a brief moment of fear before he looks to Emma and he relaxes again. Killian tries and fails to hide his smile as he takes a seat on the floor with them, a small chest of his collections in his hands. He watches fondly as Henry looks through the trinkets he’s amassed over the years, excited about each one. When he’s looked at every single item and received an explanation of its origin and function from Killian, he settles back down with the book in his hands.

Emma looks at him then at Killian. “Should we keep reading?” she suggests and Henry nods. He looks up at Killian, holding the book out. 

“Can you read it?” he asks.

“Aye,” Killian answers, voice cracking slightly on the word like he’s trying to swallow down a lump of unexpected emotion. 

Henry smiles, handing the book to Killian before scooting over to crawl into Emma’s lap. He sits there, waiting expectantly as Emma and Killian share looks of overjoyed shock over his head. Gently, Emma wraps her arms around his small frame, holding him snugly against her chest as Killian starts to read. Maybe they can’t have a baby, she thinks. Maybe they can’t be parents and raise a child they brought into the world. But maybe, maybe this is close enough.


	5. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Henry stayed with them for four years. Four years where Emma and Killian raised him as their own alongside Leo. Henry was there for the boy’s first steps, for his first words, and for Mary Margaret’s announcement that she was having another baby. Henry was also there when David finally got his act together and proposed. Actually, they were all there when it happened. Maybe they were hiding a few tables away at the restaurant after Henry had figured out where and when David had planned to pop the question, but the important thing was: they were there.

“ _I can’t believe you guys haunted my proposal,_ ” David had griped.

“ _Shouldn’t have told the kid then,_ ” Emma shrugged. She didn’t miss the wink David sent Henry and she wondered how much Henry had actually figured out and how much David had spoon-fed him to ensure they would all be there. She smiled. She also smiled when she listened to Killian tease David for crying as he watched Mary Margaret walk down the aisle with baby Ruth in her arms and Emma, Leo, and Killian standing at his side.

Emma remembers the panic and the joy that had gripped her heart that night two months after Henry had come into their lives - the day his door appeared. She, Henry and Killian were curled up on the sofa, Killian having read to him from a book of fairytales for the upteenth time. Emma pretended she didn’t take offence to the fact that Henry had declared Killian the superior reader. She couldn’t fault him though, he did the voices much better than she could.

_“Mom?”_ Henry had asked and the two of them froze.

“ _Yeah, kid?”_ she answered, barely getting the words out over the lump in her throat.

“ _Do you think we could go look at the ships again tomorrow?”_ he turned his big puppy dog eyes on her and Emma melted.

“ _Sure.”_

Killian smiled, leaning in conspiratorially. _“You know, if you’re really good and practice your ghost skills we might even be able to sneak onto one.”_

Henry’s eyes had lit up. _“Really?!”_

Killian winked and Emma nudged him in the ribs. ‘ _Please don’t teach our kid to be a criminal,’_ she wanted to say but the look on Henry’s face stopped her. Henry lunged at Killian, wrapping his arms around his middle.

_“You’re the coolest dad ever,_ ” came his voice, muffled in Killian’s chest.

Killian looked at her and couldn’t stop the affectionate smile at the look of amazement on his face. He cleared his throat, ruffling the boy’s hair.

As if nothing had happened, Henry leaped up, announcing he was going to get ice cream, Emma vaguely reminding him not to take a lot so it wouldn’t melt. As if he hadn’t just changed their lives forever with two little words. When he’d left the room she turned to her husband who still looked a little shell-shocked.

“ _He’s never called us that before_ ,” Killian said softly.

Emma shook her head. “ _No, he hasn’t.”_

“ _I really like it.”_

Emma laughed, tears stinging her eyes. “ _Yeah, me too_.”

Killian reached out, brushing her hair back behind her ear and letting his thumb come up to wipe away an errant tear. He looked like he wanted to say more, but was cut off by a tiny bundle of energy precariously holding a bowl of ice cream crashing into their laps. They’d sat, taking turns tasting the spoonful of ice cream until Henry looked up quizzically.

“ _Why did you guys put a door in the bookshelf?”_ he asked, raising a brow in a way that was so reminiscent of Killian that Emma almost laughed. Almost, then his words hit her. A door?

Both their heads snapped towards the bookcase where a small, blue door had suddenly appeared right beside the shelf where they kept Henry and Leo’s books. Emma’s heart raced in her chest. She felt the blood leave her face, her body numb, humming and empty except for one feeling, dread.

_No. No,_ she thought helplessly. Not yet. It’s too soon. She hadn’t had enough time. _She would never have enough time._

“ _Why are you looking at me like that?”_ Henry asked, causing Emma to blink and look up at Killian who looked white as, well, a ghost.

“That’s…” Killian started, the words getting caught in his throat. Emma wanted to shake her head at him. _Please don’t tell him!_ she wanted to cry. But she knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t make this decision for him, as much as she wanted to keep him forever.

_“That’s your door,_ ” Killian said finally, reaching out to brush Henry’s hair out of his face. He looked to her, begging, and she knew he couldn’t go on. He’d done his part, now it was time for her to do her part.

“ _It will take you to the other side… to whatever there is after this,”_ she explained as delicately as she could.

Henry looked at both of them, his lip trembling as he continued to glance back at the door. “ _I don’t want to go,”_ he said quietly and suddenly, the door was gone. “ _I want to stay with you._ ”

Something washed over Emma then: relief, sorrow, joy, fear. He’d turned down his door. What could that mean? Would Henry we trapped here forever? Would he stay a ten year old boy forever? On a selfish level Emma wanted exactly that, to keep him here like this, keep _them_ here like this forever. But she knew it wasn’t right. All little boys have to grow up.

She didn’t know what to say, so she pulled Henry close and told him he didn’t have to go, that she loved him, but as she looked at Killian, she knew. She knew that they both knew that this could only end in heartbreak. As she looked at the little boy in her arms, though, heard him tell her he loved her too, she decided the heartbreak was worth it. She would do everything in her power to help him move on - but not until he was ready. And until then, she would love him, love all of them more than anyone had ever loved another human being before.

It was four years later when that day finally came. Emma and Killian had taken Henry to the park to play with some of the other kids, some that he remembered from his days as a living child. He was with a small group, all the other boys and girls towered over  him now. When they all ran off to start a game, Henry hung back. His parents watched as he made his way to the top of the small, wooden tower in the jungle gym, the one he’d named his castle. He sat for a moment before pulling a book from his bag, staring at it intently.

Emma nudged Killian, who had been watching two little girls sword fighting with sticks, and nudged her head in their son’s direction. They joined him at the top of the tower, squeezing in on either side of him. Emma took note of the book in his hand. _Peter Pan_.

“ _What’s troubling you, lad?_ ” Killian prodded gently. “ _You don’t want to play with the other kids?”_

“ _They’re…_ ” Henry paused. _“They’re not kids anymore.”_ Emma looked at Killian. She knew. She knew this moment was coming. The moment where Henry realised that his life wouldn’t ever be the same as the other children’s. That he wouldn’t grow up and change like them. She’d had that realisation herself a few months after turning down her own door; but it was different for her. She was an adult. Being twenty-eight forever was very different from being frozen at ten years old.

Emma looked at the book in his hands again, wishing she had something to say that would help. She’d known this moment was coming, so had Killian, but neither of them had any idea what they could possibly say to make it better.

“ _I think…”_ Henry hesitated again and she and Killian waited, letting him process whatever he needed to process. “ _I think I want to grow up_ ,” he admitted, looking at them for help, like he wasn’t sure what to do with this revelation.

Emma bit her lip to stop it from trembling. “ _Of course you do,_ ” she said, placing a kiss on his temple. He was done being Peter Pan. He was ready to leave Neverland and grow up. And he couldn’t. Because Emma had been selfish all those years ago and hadn’t pushed him to go through his door. She looked at Killian over Henry’s head, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was staring fixedly at a spot behind her. Emma followed his gaze and let out an audible gasp as her heart jumped into her throat.

There, just above the ladder they’d climbed up into the tower, was a little blue door with a pirate ship carved in it. She stared at it in silence and bewilderment until Henry, who had noticed something was different, looked up to see what they were staring at.

“ _Is that for me?_ ” he asked.

Two things happened that day.

The first was that Killian and Emma learned that ghosts didn’t only get one door, that there wasn’t only one chance to move on, one bit of unfinished business in a person’s life. And how could there be? People were too complex, too multidimensional, too human to have only one desire.

The second, was that Henry left them. After long, tearful hugs, kisses, promises, ‘I love you’s’ and a few more tearful hugs from Emma, Henry had stood and walked towards his door. Just before he opened it, he paused, turning back to them to thank them.

_“Thank you for being my parents,”_ he told them before stepping through, and Emma felt as though her heart had been ripped from her chest. She let out a sob that was almost a scream at the pain of watching him leave. She knew that one day she’d be happy. That she’d look back on this moment with fondness and remember the happy boy who’d come into their lives. But for now, she only grieved.

Killian stayed silent. He was silent for almost two full days, leaving Emma to explain what had happened to David and Mary Margaret through her tears. It was an awful day in the house, the only one Emma can remember there ever being.

After two days of her crying, and Killian being silent, Emma finally let her tears dry, largely, she was sure, because she had none left in her body. It was then and only then that Killian had let himself cry and Emma realised he’d been trying to stay strong. She’d told him what an idiot he was as the two of them cried together, laughing eventually because they didn’t know what else to do.

They cried and laughed as Killian pulled her close and brought her lips to his as they both sought comfort in the most basic and intimate way they could, drowning out the pain with pleasure if only for a moment.

Later, when their tears had dried and they lay under the sheets, holding one another to make sure they wouldn’t float away, Killian spoke silently.

“ _I already miss being a father,_ ” he said and Emma’s heart ached for him _. “Being_ his _father,”_ he clarified.

“ _I know,_ ” she sighed, placing a kiss to the centre of his chest.

“ _What do we do now?”_ he asked, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck.

“ _We keep living,_ ” she told him.

 

And they did. They let their lives continue as they had before, though slightly emptier, helping their friends raise Leo and Ruth, celebrating when Mary Margaret announced a third was on its way. It wasn’t easy - but when was being human ever?

Killian was pondering this, coming to terms with the fact that he may have to live with an emptiness in his heart forever and musing that this was technically the final stage of grief, when Emma walked through the door. In each of her hands was a smaller one. At her elbows stood a boy and a girl whom Emma introduced as Ava and Nicholas.

_“I didn’t know where else to bring them,_ ” Emma told him as they set the children up with crayons and paper in front of the TV. Killian smiled, wrapping an arm around her.

“ _You did good, Swan,_ ” he told her, and as he looked at the children who had now started throwing crayons at each other, a small bit of the emptiness started to fill.

At that moment, David and a very pregnant Mary Margaret had walked in with two children and several bags of groceries.

“ _Oh,”_ Mary Margaret had exclaimed, stopping dead when she saw the kids in the living room. She looked at Killian and Emma and a smile spread across her face at Emma’s shrug. “ _How wonderful_!” she said, rushing over to introduce herself and Leo.

“ _You know, Emma,_ ” David  said, balancing Ruth on one hip and digging through the baby bag for her pacifier with his free hand. “ _We’re gonna have to build some bunk beds pretty soon if you keep bringing home strays,”_ he teased, “ _make this a proper foster home_.”

Emma’s eyes met Killian’s and everything clicked. Yes. that was it. That was exactly what they would do. Not the bunk beds, but the foster home. A home for the lost souls out there who had nowhere else to go. They would give them a home, a happy one, for as long as they needed or wanted. A home full of love and laughter and joy and family, the likes of which she had never had.

She raised a brow at Killian who smirked at her. “ _Yes, Swan, I heard it_ .” He came forward, wrapping his arms around her from behind as they both watched the scene in front of them. “ _Emma Swan, the saviour of lost souls_ ,” he teased, and Emma gave him a light elbow to the ribs but snuggled more deeply into his embrace.

She glanced at David and Mary Margaret and their children, playing with Nicholas and Ava, then up at Killian. She’d been wrong before when she’d thought she never had a real home, a real family, a happy one. She did have it. And now she wanted to share it.

The four of them stayed in that house for a long time, years building a life together for themselves and for every new addition that came and went. Over the years they welcomed dozens of lost children, some stayed only for a short while, needing to feel safe to move one, others stayed longer, like Alice, a new vampire that Killian had found driven half mad by her bloodlust but more so by her desire not to succumb to it.

With a few blood bags in her, Alice had warmed up quickly, particularly to Killian, whom she began looking at as a mentor of sorts. She was a sixteen year old street-kid who and had been turned accidentally when an older female vampire had left her for dead. She’d latched on to the kindness and guidance Killian had offered her with a desperation that broke Emma’s heart and left her to wonder how many people had hurt the poor girl before they found her.

And Killian loved her. They had a bond that Emma couldn’t fully understand, maybe it was a vampire thing, but she couldn’t begrudge them it either. Killian lit up when she came into the room, telling him about her day and how she’d made it through home room without even _thinking_ of biting someone. Her heart had leaped at the blush that had risen to his cheeks when Alice had teasingly called him ‘dad’ for his over-protective nature. Eventually, the teasing had left the title and she’d taken to calling him dad all the time.

Emma had felt a warmth overtake her whole body the day Alice called her ‘mom’ for the first time. Emma had never imagined raising a teenage girl, but she found that there was something truly wonderful about the kind of bond that came from both of them being mature enough to talk about serious things like life and love and the future, and the responsibility that came with ensuring the teenager didn’t do stupid stuff and get herself killed. They were friends, and as Alice grew up, emotionally though never physically, the bond between them strengthened, growing slowly and surely, digging in its roots. Different from the immediate, intense bond Alice had formed with Killian, but just as powerful.

When Alice turned eighteen, she decided to try her luck at college in another city but continued to come home to visit at every possible opportunity and kept in touch. FaceTime was a fantastic invention. And while the house might have felt emptier without her, there was no chance for it to with David and Mary Margaret’s three children, a little ghost girl named Wendy, and the young werewolf named Will that David had taken under his wing last month. It was taking a lot of work, but slowly he was learning to control his change.

This wasn’t the first werewolf they’d welcomed into the house. The first had been Ruby, twenty-one and freshly turned. She didn’t even know what was happening to her, her blackouts were so intense. But she’d stayed with them for nearly a year until she felt capable of controlling her wolf. David suspected that Graham, the young, new deputy officer at the station had something to do with it.

The house had begun to build a reputation. Often the children and young people there had been found by one of the four, but every once in a while someone would show up on their doorstep, saying they’d been told this was a safe place. They never turned anyone away, regardless of space, or numbers or whatever else was going on in their lives. This _was_ a safe place.

They _had,_ in fact, eventually had to build bunk beds.

 

Leo turned for the first time the month of his twelfth birthday. It had been a shock to all of them, including the boy. Thankfully, his wolf was small enough that David was able to shift and drag the cub outside by cover of darkness into the woods where he wouldn’t harm anyone, including himself. It was shortly after that that one of the next biggest changes in Emma’s life happened.

“ _What do you mean you’re leaving_?” Emma had nearly shouted when Mary Margaret and David had told them the news.

“ _We’re not leaving you, Emma,_ ” David said kindly. _“We just need more room._ _With Leo’s transformation and Ruth’s change sure to come along in a year or two… the place isn’t big enough for two preteens and a kid, especially when they’re all going to be wolves soon. They need space to run and they can’t find that in the city._ ”

“ _We won’t be far,”_ Mary Margaret reassured her. _“The farm is only twenty minutes away_.” It might has well have been in another country - another solar system. For nearly fourteen years Emma, Killian, David, and Mary Margaret had lived in this house, had built a home, and now, now it was all slipping through her fingers. She hadn’t felt this kind of ache since Henry left.

_“We understand, don’t we, love?”_ Killian had said gently, rubbing her back soothingly.

_“Of course I understand!”_ Emma had practically snapped. “ _I’m just pissed off about it_!” A cup went flying across the room and smashed into the wall, spilling its contents on the floor.

Killian had looked at her with wide eyes, before turning them on David and Mary Margaret. The three looked at each other in shock at her outburst until eventually… David laughed. David laughed and then Killian laughed and then Mary Margaret laughed and finally, Emma laughed too. And, for some strange reason, sitting here, laughing with her husband and her family, made Emma realise that nothing could change what they had, not distance or time, or where they ended up living.

She’d thought for a long time that their friendship revolved around the house, depended on it, that the house had been what had brought them together, what had made her life whole. And maybe it was, on some level. Maybe the house had brought them all together but it hadn’t built their friendship. They’d done that. They’d done it with patience and love and support and kindness, and no stupid farmhouse was going to change that.

 

Emma and Killian had debated for a long time what they should do about the house now that their friends had moved to their new place. A small part of Emma was reluctant to give it up - not because she felt she _needed_ it. She’d been tied to that house for far too long. But, well, it was her home. The only one she’d ever had. Killian understood. Of course he did. He always understood. But he also really, _really_ wanted to show her the world, to take a break from their lives here - they didn’t have any ghosts at the moment and Alice, Ruby, and Will were all doing fine on their own.

_“You know what would be really nice?”_ he asked as he trailed his lips down from her sternum to her navel one morning.

“ _Hmm?”_ Emma asked, distracted.

_“Doing this in Paris_ ,” he said, letting his tongue dart out and taste the skin just above the waistline of her underwear.

_“We can do this right here_ ,” Emma retorted but there wasn’t any strength behind it.

_“Come on, Swan_ ,” he continued, sliding his hand up along her leg from ankle to hip where he teased the stretchy fabric there. “ _Can’t you imagine it? Waking up with the sunrise? Walking down to the bakery for breakfast? Eating pastries in bed? Spending all day in bed?”_ He ducked his head down and pressed a kiss to her fabric-clad centre.

_“Fuck,”_ she moaned, squirming. But she would not be defeated.

“ _If we’re gonna spend all day in bed then there’s no need to leave the house_ ,” she told him smugly. Killian laughed, crawling his way back up her body and placing a kiss to her jaw. Then a nip.

“ _Hey!”_ she cried in surprise then rolled her eyes at his smugness. “ _Vampire_ ,” she mocked and he laughed again.

“ _We could also get a ship,_ ” he mused, lips trailing down to explore the column of her neck and the dip of her collar bone as his hand trailed up her side to her breast, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

“ _A boat?”_ she asked, confused.She couldn’t focus. He nipped her again.

“ _Ship_ .” he corrected. “ _We could set a course, sail the sea from one exotic land to another.”_ His hand was working her underwear down her legs now and she scrambled to push his jeans off.

“ _Freaking pirate,”_ she mused and he smirked, both at her comment and at her eagerness.

“ _Always._ ” She gasped as he pushed himself inside her, her legs rising to wrap around his waist. “ _Ever made love on a moving ship before, love?”_ Emma was not responsible for the sounds that came out of her mouth as he began to move. “ _Something about the rocking of the ship,”_ he mused before doing something with the motion of his hips that had Emma gasping and clutching at his back, nails digging into the skin she found there. “ _Yeah,”_ Killian said sounding as smug as she’d ever heard him. “ _It’s just like that_.”

She fought with everything she had to keep her wits about her, her words coming out between breathless pants and cries of pleasure. _“It’s really starting to sound like you just want to fuck me all over the world.”_

Killian laughed, reaching to pull her hands up over her head and pin them there. _“That’s exactly what I want to do_ .” he told her. “ _What do you say, love? Will you let me show you the world?”_

He looked at her hopefully and a little bit wrecked, not stopping the motion of his hips and Emma knew he wasn’t playing fair - _he_ knew he wasn’t playing fair - asking her for favours as he drove her higher and higher and she couldn’t even stop herself from pushing her hips up to meet his, let alone argue. But it was the look in his eyes as he asked her, the smugness gone and replaced with love and hopefulness and desire, that made her cave. The house would be here when they got back.

“ _Okay,_ ” she said breathlessly and his face lit up, and she decided that making him look at her like that was better than any victory. He leaned down to press their lips together, the kiss a little messy, all slanted mouths and desperate tongues and the ongoing rocking of their bodies, but she could feel his smile in it and it brought out her own.

“ _But only,”_ she stressed, _“if you finish what you started so that I know it’ll be worth all the hassle just to get laid in some other city,”_ she teased, and the look that came over his face was downright wicked. He loved a challenge.

Emma cried out as he redoubled the speed of his hips, hands and mouth somehow everywhere as her brought her higher and higher, until she came with his name on her lips, back bowing under him as her hands grasped frantically for any part of him to hold onto as he rode her through it. He looked smug for all of ten seconds before she tightened her legs around him, lifting her hips and he broke, his face falling into her shoulder. _Yeah,_ she thought. _Definitely worth it._

“ _That was a dirty trick_ ,” she told him later when the sweat had cooled on their bodies and their breathing had nearly returned to normal.

Killian smiled at her. “ _Oh, love, I have all sorts of dirty tricks,_ ” he promised, leaning in to nip at her bottom lip. “ _And I plan to show you them all…_ ” his hand trailed down her side and Emma felt an exhausted but very real flutter of desire begin to burn low in her belly. “.... _just as soon as we book those tickets._ ”

Emma groaned, letting her hand fall over her eyes. _Stupid. Bloody. Pirate._

 

Killian did show her the world. All the places he knew, then all the places she’d always wanted to see, and then the places neither of them and ever even heard of. Emma never stopped being the saviour of lost souls, picking up strays along the way. Sometimes they were supernatural and sometimes they weren’t. Any time they found someone in need, they helped. It was what they did. It gave them a purpose beyond aimlessly travelling. They had each other, they had something that made them feel they were doing good, and they had the world.

They also had David and Mary Margaret, who they travelled back to see several times a year. They also had Leo and Ruth and Ariel and Mary Margaret and David’s fourths, which turned out to be twins, Killian and Emma. Yeah, Emma had cried when they got to the hospital and were told what their friends had named their babies. Killian had made a joke, suggesting that a name like Killian was far too high a standard for the kid to have to live up to. David had threatened to change it. Eventually, they also had grand-nieces and nephews and then great grand-nieces and nephews.

They sold the house, deciding that they had built a life and a family there and now they wanted to give someone else a chance to do the same. They sold it to Will and his wife Belle who had promised to always keep the doors open to anyone who needed a home.

They had everything. They had love and they had family. Emma and Killian may not age, their hair may never turn grey and they’d never find their laugh lines replaced with the deep wrinkles like the ones that had found their way onto David and Mary Margaret’s faces and even on Leo’s the last time they saw him, but this was life they were living. Watching the babies they cared for grow up and have babies of their own felt more human, more mortal than anything Emma could have ever imagined.

It was nearly sixty years later when that fateful call came from Leo. _‘Yeah, I think you guys should come home. It’s time.”_ They were in Seattle visiting Alice and her wife, Robin, but they were on the next train home within the hour.  

“ _Jeez, Killian, you’ve really let yourself go,_ ” David greeted them as they walked through the door. His hair may have been thin and white, his face marked with lines and age spots, and he may even have breathed heavily getting the quip out, but he was still David.

“ _Please, David, I’m as devilishly handsome as ever,_ ” Killian threw back as they exchanged hugs with the family that had gathered for their friends’ final moments. _“As is your lovely wife, I see_ ,” Killian added smiling at Mary Margaret who was drifting in and out of sleep on the bed next to her husband, curled up against him.

_“Ever the charmer,_ ” she breathed out softly, eyes cracking open to smile at him. _“Emma,”_ she said happily, reaching out a hand to grasp her friends. “ _I’m so glad you’re here,_ ” she told them both, and David smiled.

_“I think this is it, guys,_ ” he told them, his own eyelids starting to grow heavy after the burst of energy it took him to mock his friend.

Killian swallowed a lump and Emma fought her tears.

“ _Yeah, it looks like it_ ,” she said as the two of them sat on the bed with their friends, their best friends, their family.

_“It was a hell of a ride, wasn’t it?”_ David asked softly, eyes fluttering closed.

Killian gave a choked laugh. “ _It was_ ,” he agreed, grabbing David’s hand and holding tight.

A small smile crossed David’s face. “ _Wouldn’t trade it for the world. Werewolves and vampires and ghosts and all_.”

It was Emma’s turn to cry now. “ _Neither would we._ ”

His eyes were closed now, face starting to relax. _“I love you guys,”_ he told them and Emma threw herself against his chest, trying to steal one last David Nolan bear hug.

There was a long silence that hung heavy in the air before it was broken by the sound of David’s voice:

“ _Oh shit! I’m hot again!”_ he exclaimed, and Emma and Killian whirled around to see David, young David, standing at the foot of his own death bed. They looked at him, confused. What unfinished business could he possibly have?

“ _What?”_ he asked in disbelief. _“You guys didn’t think I’d leave without her, did you?”_ he said, walking over to Mary Margaret, who still lay curled against his body. She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. She shouldn’t have been able to see him, but maybe it was the prolonged exposure to the supernatural, or the fact that she was so near the end herself -- or maybe it was just that they were David and Mary Margaret, but she smiled a sleepy smile at him.

“ _Hey, handsome,”_ she said and David edged his way onto the bed, wrapping himself around her so that she was wedged between his body and his soul, right where she belonged. “ _This is really weird,”_ she remarked and David laughed.

“ _Yeah, it is,_ ” he agreed. “ _You take all the time you need, sweetheart, I’ll be right here waiting for you.”_

It wasn’t long at all, and Emma wasn’t surprised. She never thought either of them would do well in a world without the other. They were all like that. They did better together. Emma remembered Killian’s words from so, so long ago: _‘Being alone is good. Being alone is safe. But take it from someone who tried being alone for a long time… people - others help. It makes it all feel more… human’._ She’d had no idea back then how true his words were, and as she watched her friends say their final farewells and walk through their communal door - because of course they wouldn’t even be apart for their trip to the ether - Emma reached for Killian’s hand and held it tight.

_“You know,”_ Killian started and Emma looked at him, waiting for him to say what he needed to, thinking it would have to do with Mary Margaret and David, but she was surprised to find his thoughts were along the same line as her own.

“ _I want to thank you,”_ he told her, “ _thank all of you really,”_ he said, acknowledging the others in the room and their friends who had just moved on. _“But especially you.”_ He paused and she looked at him affectionately, waiting to hear what she’s being thanked for. _“I’ve lived nearly four hundred years but I never had this. This is the life I always wanted. I was stuck for so long, and maybe I didn’t grow old, but we really lived, didn’t we?”_ he asked her and Emma nodded through her tears. “ _I got it all, everything I ever wanted and I had it with you, because of you_ .” He drew her hand up to his lips and placed a kiss on the back of their interlocked fingers. _“Thank you, Emma, for giving me everything I never knew I needed._ ”

Emma was about to speak, was about to try and tell him in her own, clumsy, bumbling way that he had given her everything she’d given him, that he’d made her life worth living, that they all had, that him, this, all of it was all she ever wanted from life, when she noticed the door. It was black with a red swan on it and Emma stopped breathing for a second.

She didn’t know if this was her door or Killian’s door or both of theirs but as Killian noticed her silence and turned to find what she was staring at, his hand squeezed her’s tighter. He took a deep breath, looking first at the door and then at her.

“ _What do you say, love?_ ” he asked, giving her a slightly impish smile. “ _Together?”_

Emma smiled back, nodding, certain, more certain than she’d ever been of anything in her life. Because that’s what it had been. She may not have been alive but it was a life. And it was a wonderful, fantastic life.

“ _Always.”_

Their friends were already there waiting for them, sat around the coffee table and on the old battered couch with a mug of hot chocolate.


End file.
